Examine Your Shorts, Part II: Aspen, Academia, and Alternatives

From all accounts, the Aspen Shortsfest is one of the pre-eminent shortsfestivals in the country, with both the bank and the will to fly in andhost its filmmakers from all over the world. Amy Talkington (“SecondSkin”) notes that the environment created at Aspen by having thefilmmakers gathered in one place, far away from urban distractions orfeature film showings that could be perceived as more important, allowedfor “an exchange of ideas” between filmmakers that she has yet to findat another festival. The programming of the fest also wins her kudos asbeing thoughtful, diverse, and giving Aspen’s dedicated local audiencesboth crowd-pleasing work and more challenging films. Additionally, shelauds the fest for getting the filmmakers publicity and the concretereward of press clips at the fest’s end.

In the further interests of serving both filmmakers and audiences, it’sworth taking a look at different programming strategies. Many shortsfests, including the SIFF and the NY Expo, program according to genre,dividing things up into Comedy, Drama, Student, Documentary, Animation,and Experimental, for example. These divisions can be problematic. Forexample, some documentaries are funny, and some films classified as comedies,to my mind, are not. Two hours of comedy begins to render everythingsupremely unfunny, and two hours of drama can begin to feel like a leadweight pressing on one’s head, no matter how moving and wonderful eachof the films might be on its own. Also, in this country where thegovernment provides such an insignificant amount of funding for shortfilms compared to Europe or Canada, student films constitute an enormouspercentage of the shorts that are made domestically, and I personallydon’t like seeing them ghettoized into a separate category. It mighthighlight the virtues of all of the films if more festivals designedtheir programs thematically like Aspen’s Shortsfest or Seattle’s OneReel. This strategy allows viewers to draw their own conclusions aboutrelationships between works.

If one is interested in seeing student shorts as such, New York and LA’snumerous film schools play host to wads of student showcases throughoutthe year. These events can be wonderful for filmmakers, giving them thechance to show their work on the big screen with audiences made up offriends and industry pros alike. Indeed, many filmmakers, myselfincluded, have established either their earliest or most significantties with the industry, including producers and agents, as a result ofstudent showcases.

As an audience member at student festivals, as well as at mostfestivals, it can be worth one’s while to check out a selection of filmsbeyond the pre-filtered award winning selections, which only deliver asmall sampling of what’s available. For instance, Jay Rosenblatt’s“Human Remains” has swept awards at SIFF, the Aspen Shortsfest, and theNY EXPO. While its portrait of the daily habits of the century’s mostfamed dictators is indeed unforgettable, I’m glad I also got to seeDaniel Baer’s “Horse Dreams in BBQ Country” a quirky, poignant tale thatworks much more quietly but at least as affectingly, just to name onefilm from the SIFF documentary category. Many festivals, especially thestudent showcases heap the bulk of their praise on more sanitized orpolitically palatable offerings, but those with a taste for somethingmore off-kilter might appreciate some programs beyond the awardsscreenings. Especially after viewing the winning programs from four orfive festivals — where you might begin to think there are only tenshort films in the whole world every year.

As there seems to be a lot of cross-pollination between the winners ofdifferent festivals, it might be a welcome change in the landscape ifeach festival began to develop a more distinctive voice. For instance,if one fest became known for its decidedly bleak outlook and another forits films of good cheer, or one for stellar writing and another forslick production values, it could help both audiences and filmmakersfocus their time and financial resources appropriately instead of makingthe experience of attending a shorts fest either the crap shoot or theoverly predictable experience that it often is.

The NY Expo actually did seem to have an identifiable slant towardsacademia. Its location at the New School as well as its glaring lack ofcelebrity and the academic tone of the panel I attended (“Directions in NewMedia”) all pointed to the festival’s seeming focus on cinema as an academicdiscipline. Even the one person I had the guts to approach cold at thefestival’s party at Life was there as a distributor of educational documentaries.I admire the Expo for having a distinct perspective, which, while not toeveryone’s particular taste, can help it attract the work it wants toscreen and the audience members who want to see that work.

Indeed, there will be opportunities to see winning films from some ofNew York’s local shorts fests in the coming months. The 1998 Expo awardwinners will be screened in NYC at the Donnell Library CenterAuditorium, and the winning films from the SIFF will be traveling to LA,Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC and Dallas, as well as screeningon the Independent Film Channel in the spring of 1999. If you haveaccess to any of these venues, you will be able to weigh in, yourself,on the state of the short film fest in North America.

[A native of Portland, Oregon, Amy Veltman is a filmmaker living in NewYork. She also writes for the website Girls on Film.]

[Coming soon, Part III of Examine Your Shorts, a run down of outlets tosell to and find exposure for short films.]